PHOTO ABOVE: Neon sign hung in the Twitter headquarters.
Upon changing my Twitter usage for a period of time, it was easy for me to make observations about my interactions with new media in my everyday life. It became clear to me that technology and new media are consolidated representations of our lives, every facet translated to a phone or computer screen through apps, photos, videos, and messages. For every human interaction, there are multiple separate, but arguably equal, interactions over social media or text messaging. Beginning as a way to test my social medium preferences, and recognize the reason behind that choice, my Twitter binge has transformed into an understanding of the desire to be constantly connected to every aspect of our lives through different forms of new media and technology.
Approaching this Twitter binge, I was conscious of my dislike of Twitter as what I have called an “update-based” form of social media. I preferred the ease and directness with which I commented back and forth via Facebook and Instagram. Recognizing that this preference was rooted in my deeper favor of direct communication over “updates,” I decided to use Twitter daily, keeping in mind my reasons for disliking it, and acknowledging whether or not those feelings changed over the course of my binge. Over time, I recognized that I did not dislike Twitter, but that it served me in ways that I was not accustomed to. Twitter dipped into the space-based theory, as discussed by Innis. Twitter serves as a medium that shares information over a wide breath, for a short period, whereas Facebook is a medium that is more geared toward the time-based theory, in comparison. With Twitter, I was able to connect with one of my friends that is a studying abroad in a way that was different from Facebook messaging. Twitter allowed me to scroll through his errant thoughts, making me feel as if I was sitting in the same room with him, and he was ranting about whatever issue fell in his path. Through this experience, I am now able to justify the purpose of Twitter, despite the Silver’s claims. In his article, Silver identifies the difference between thick and thin Tweets and encourages his audience to stick to thick tweets with multiple layers of information. However, in my opinion, the tweets that were spontaneous, uninformative, and un-manicured were also the ones that stuck out in my mind as funny and representative of my friend’s quick wit. Thick tweets, however, took away from the identity of the user. By incorporating links and other extraneous information, the user builds on a thought in an unnatural way. I learned, during my test, that I was more inclined to scroll through the Twitter feeds of those that simply documented their errant thoughts, than those that composed multi-layered Twitter masterpieces. Twitter has provided a place for users to share a new form of information, described by Dibbell as the “random, fleeting observation.” With these random, fleeting observations, I have discovered a new level of interactivity that I didn’t realize existed. These tweets can be more personal, as the reader can imagine the user saying or thinking each fleeting observation. Certainly, on the flipside, these kinds of tweets can be irrelevant and less relatable for those who do not know the user personally, which is where the need for trimming down those you follow comes in. There is, however, a way to communicate via Twitter that is both relatable and random. For instance, during my Twitter binge, I followed one of my favorite celebrities, Chrissy Teigen. Despite having followed her on Instagram for about a year, I feel as if I have been invited to experience another facet of her personality with the following of her Twitter account. As a model, most people would stereotypically assume that she was dull and hard to relate to. However, the opposite is true. She is both candid and relatable in her tweets, making me feel like I know her on a personal level. She offers a look into her life, guided by her personality, which makes it obvious she is the one running her own account. Twitter does something that other forms of social media do not: it allows you to experience someone across a platform the way that you would experience him or her in person. It removes all of the links and photos, and breaks social media down to the bare bones of communication: thoughts conveyed by words. Aside from connecting me to my friends on an unexpected level, Twitter has also provided me with an example of how Internet users express their identities. Much like each area of our lives can be expressed through digital media and technology, most facets of a person can be depicted through their social media and Internet accounts: thoughts through Twitter, visuals through Instagram, ideas through Pinterest and Tumblr, expressions through Snapchat. In fact, our identities as Internet and social media users add an entirely new level to our overall selves. In conclusion, my binge with Twitter has allowed me to recognize new media and technology as a shrunken down, compartmentalized representation of our lives. Virtually every experience, activity, conversation, and emotion we have can be conveyed in one way or another through technology and new media. My experience with Twitter, for example, was a digital representation of listening to my friend rant about unimportant things, like the “hot dogs or legs” trend. During my binge, I noticed that Twitter enables users to develop a facet of their online identities by showcasing the most realistic representation of an in-person interaction. To me, the value of an account was not based on the thickness of the user’s tweet, but how much it conveyed his or her personality in the fewest amount of words. Twitter is one facet of our social media experience that helps digitally convey a portion of our lives and form our online identities. |